


1066 and All That

by ViolaWay



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Fluff, M/M, Teacher!Harry, teacher!Louis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-12
Updated: 2013-05-12
Packaged: 2017-12-11 15:59:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/800517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ViolaWay/pseuds/ViolaWay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Louis is a history teacher who hates his job, and Harry is the only thing worth learning about.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1066 and All That

**Author's Note:**

> loosely based on 1066 and All That (okay, not really) and set in my home town because I love it :)  
> my tumblr is multifandomstylinson so we can hang out there

By the end of Monday, Louis was sick of the sound of his own voice. By the end of Tuesday, he’d given out seventeen detentions. By the end of Wednesday, he’d confiscated twenty-one mobile phones. By the start of Thursday, he had consumed twenty-four cups of coffee already that week, each with five teaspoons of sugar.

Louis Tomlinson told his mother that he loved teaching. Jay was well adept at detecting her son’s blatant lies, but she had known better than to fuss over the dark circles under Louis’ eyes and the grimace that permanently adorned his lips when he had last visited Doncaster. Louis told his sisters that he loved teaching, and even though Lottie was old enough to see straight through the lie, she’d hugged her brother, and had told him that he was sure to be a brilliant teacher, what with how good he had always been at taking care of his four sisters. Louis had smiled warmly at that, avoiding any more specific questions all the same.

He knew that he would have been better suited for being a Primary School teacher. But he’d gone to  _University,_ for God’s sake—and you didn’t go from Uni to working in a nursery. Besides, a Primary teacher’s salary just wouldn’t pay the rent. (Well, it would pay  _a_ rent, but Louis didn’t want to give up his large, spacious apartment. In fact, he was looking to buy a house—when he found someone to live with, of course. Louis tended to plan these things slightly too far in advance.)

It was on that Thursday that he was asked to have dinner with the rest of the history department on Saturday. A very large part of him urged him to say no (he had tons of marking to catch up on and countless lessons to plan), but he had always loved getting to know new people, and he was gradually becoming aware that he barely knew anyone in his own department. So he said yes. Danielle, the head of history, looked thrilled and promised to email him the details as soon as she could. As soon as she left, Louis sighed and spent his lunch break doing the marking he had been putting off until the weekend. He found that one girl had been writing FanFiction instead of composing her actual essay, but he marked it anyway. He was surprised that a fourteen-year-old girl appeared to know quite so much about gay sex, but he captioned the paragraphs instead with: “Harry Potter is no top. Draco would top, end of story. Please re-write, although preferably not in my lessons.” His red pen was running out by this time—the end of lunch—so he switched to green and made up for the more comforting colour by writing harsher comments. He always preferred red: it instilled a sense of foreboding into the students before they even read the assessment.

…He decided that maybe he should stop.

It was slightly discouraging that after six weeks of teaching the kids about William the Conqueror, not one of them could remember his actual last name. Louis ate an entire pack of jammie dodgers before picking up his pen once more, and then he realised that what he really needed more than anything in the world right now was a yoghurt. He violently denied—out loud, to an empty room—that he was procrastinating.

Six strawberry yoghurts later, he admitted to himself that this pretty much defined the term ‘procrastination’. Also, there was yoghurt in his hair.

His next class (the last one of the day) was in five minutes, so he resigned himself to the fact that he was going to have to teach like this. Of course, though, the first comment from an eleven-year-old boy as he entered the classroom was:

“Sir, is that cum in your hair?”

“Detention,” Louis replied wearily, touching a hand to his fringe self-consciously.

“Aw, c’mon sir, that’s not fair!” the boy complained. Louis considered the fact that by this point in the year, he really should know the kid’s name. He shook off the notion and ignored the plea, returning to his desk.

“No, the Feudal system was unfair. This is your punishment for making an inappropriate, sexual comment about a teacher,” Louis retorted, and then he said some things about some period of history, and then he was free to go. It was a fair enough routine, really.

Except it was really frowned upon if you left at three pm, so Louis just sat in his classroom watching porn on his phone until five, and  _then_ he left.

***

Louis’ decision to actually leave his flat was looking a lot less desirable by six pm on Saturday, when he really just wanted to watch his pre-recorded Made in Chelsea in peace. But the world (and his big mouth) wasn’t that kind.

He finally got up around half an hour later, brushed his hair and pulled on suspenders, hoping that he wouldn’t look as tired as he felt.

He turned up fifteen minutes late, obviously, to a little restaurant called The Harvester, and they’d refused to order drinks without him, which was really very noble, but then none of them ordered alcohol and Louis felt like his night was going to waste without a bottle of red wine to nurse. Sat around the table (or two tables pushed together, depending on how you looked at it), were the ten members of the history department who had actually shown up. Louis realised he didn’t know any of their names, and he discretely opened his phone to the school website, checking down the list of teachers and matching photos with faces while everyone else chatted away merrily.

There was Liam Payne, Stan Lucas, Harry Styles, Eleanor Calder, Zayn Malik, Josh Devine, Danielle Peazer, Niall Horan and Andy Samuels. Andy and Liam were next to each other, the former making dirty jokes while Liam laughed nervously. Stan was an old friend: they’d moved the Milton Keynes together, but had drifted apart despite having the same job. He was next to Niall, who was complaining about the lack of alcohol.  _I feel you, mate,_ Louis replied mentally.

He tried to play his favourite game with new people (even though he’d ‘known’ all of these people for about a year and a half): “gay or not gay…or in between?”

Eleanor was most likely straight, he thought, and Josh was probably just a little flexible. Niall seemed at least a little bit bi, Andy appeared to be as straight as a board, Stan was straight but open to new experiences, Louis knew, and Liam was probably straight, which was a shame, because Zayn kept giving him eyes from across the table. So Zayn was almost certainly gay, Louis reasoned. Danielle might be, Louis wasn’t really sure. She definitely looked flexible, in more ways than one.

And the last one, the guy with curly hair in the corner who was called Harry…well, Louis could only hope to God that he was gay, because his curls flopped into his green eyes and he licked his pink lips and Louis tried to cast his mind back to passing Harry in the corridor or seeing him in the staffroom, but he kept coming up blank. So he kept staring at the boy, trying to shake the feeling that he knew him somehow. Louis was in the seat across from him, so he thought it would only be polite to strike up a conversation.

“So, what drink did you order?” Yes, Louis was the absolute master of small talk.

“Chocolate milk,” Harry said shyly.

“What are you, five?” Louis responded before he could stop himself.

“I’m twenty-two, actually.”

“Just out of University?” Louis guessed.

“Uh huh, I went to Oxford.”

“Wow, look at you, fancy-pants. I went to Warwick, so feel free to be all high and mighty.”

“Is that the place with the castle?” Harry asked.

“Yep. Warwick Castle. Went there every day,” Louis said seriously.

“Wouldn’t that cost you a lot?” Harry murmured quizzically, and Louis let out a ringing laugh.

“I haven’t been there since I was five, you idiot!”

“But it’s a great historical monument.”

“Eh. History gets a bit old when you’re studying at Uni at the same time,” Louis shrugged, and Harry nodded his assent.

“I s’pose. So what drink did  _you_  order?”

“Berry Blast Smoothie,” Louis smirked.

“What are you, three?” Harry mocked good-naturedly.

“Oh, definitely. I’m Peter Pan, never getting old.”

“Wouldn’t that be nice,” Harry said thoughtfully, his eyes drifting shut.

“Being perpetually three years old sounds terrible, actually,” Louis chuckled in response.

“No, staying young! Sometimes I wish time would stop, y’know…” Harry trailed off dreamily.

“Well, I’m twenty-five already. No chance of stopping now,” Louis replied.

“You sound like such a pessimist!” Harry said.

“Ah, it only happens once a month.”

“Caught you on bad day?”

“I’m missing reality TV right now. Any day where I miss that is a bad one.”

“Haven’t you got a Sky box?” Harry teased. “Just record your Geordie Shore.”

“’S not the same, and I’ll read the spoilers online before I get ‘round to it.”

“First world problems,” Harry nodded wisely.

Their drinks arrived, then: Harry and Louis were obviously the only ones who had sort of ordered from the kid’s menu. Niall had somehow procured a beer, and Louis was actually having a good time, despite how disgusting his smoothie turned out to be. Harry was actually someone he could have a conversation with that wasn’t fake or exaggerated; he just had to be himself and Harry was impressed. It was a nice feeling.

“So, Harry, why have I never seen your pretty face before?” Louis inquired lightly.

“I’m not sure, but you do tend to keep to your office, don’t you? I tend to keep to mine as well, it makes for fewer distractions,” Harry blushed.

“Surely distractions are welcome when you’re marking,” Louis said.

“I don’t know, I actually like history, and I enjoy reading others’ interpretations of it,” Harry said honestly, catching Louis by surprise. He’d forgotten that it was actually possible to enjoy your job.

“Even when they’re wrong?” Louis asked.

“Who’s to say what’s right and wrong?”

“You’re not bloody Ghandi, give it a rest. The teacher says when it’s wrong! If someone says that Jack the Ripper terrorized London in 1988, then they’re wrong!”

“Okay, fine,” Harry laughed. “But most of history is up to interpretation. Do you believe Hitler was truly evil? Do you think Nelson Mandela gets too much recognition for the end of Apartheid? Do you think Henry VIII introducing the Church of England was a good thing or not? Everyone has different opinions.”

“Not about the Hitler thing,” Louis said.

“You’d be surprised.”

“Oh, really?”

“I try to give them a balanced argument. Hitler did awful, horrible, terrible things, but he was a human being and he thought he was doing what was best for his country. It’s not a black and white issue.”

“Stop being so smart!” Louis whined. “What’re you ordering?”

“I dunno, you keep distracting me.”

“Wow, your multi-tasking skills astound me,” Louis said sarcastically, eyes scanning the menu once. “I’ll be having the fish.”

“I’ll have the same.”

“Copy-cat.”

***

They were onto dessert by the time Louis decided that he couldn’t stand it anymore: he had to ask.

“So, Hazza. Put me out of my misery: are you single or not?”

Harry laughed and gave Louis a once over, evaluating his question.

“Hmm… I think not.”

“You think?”

“My answer depends on what your perfect first date entails,” Harry winked.

“Bambi,” Louis said instantly.

“It’s a done deal, then. When are you next free?” Harry smiled.

“Tomorrow?” Louis offered.

“So eager,” Harry said. “Okay, then. Or…what about tonight?”

“Who’s eager now?” Louis commented slyly. “But that’s fine. Why tonight?”

“I just realised that I promised my mum I’d visit her this week, and I haven’t so far. Also, Niall drove me here and I need a lift back since he’s probably going to leave with Josh by the looks of things.”

“I  _knew_ Niall was bi!” Louis exclaimed happily.

“You…what?”

“Never mind. Of course I’ll go home with you, Harry Styles. It was only a matter of time before your irresistible curls seduced the crap out of me,” Louis said.

“I’ll only put out if you bake cookies.”

***

“Why didn’t you tell me you couldn’t cook!?” Harry demanded, staring mournfully at the burnt batch of cookies. “It’s like you’ve killed them.”

“Hey, you were the one who told me to!”

“Louis. You must  _know_ you can’t cook,” Harry said.

“Of course I know I can’t cook! But it was  _BBC recipe._ It was meant to be fool proof,” Louis sighed. “If we watch Bambi  _and_ Aladdin, do I still have a chance?”

“That’s kind of romantic and slutty at the same time,” Harry conceded thoughtfully.

“Just hand stuff, then?” Louis offered.

“We’ll see.”

They headed into Louis’ living room with the popcorn that he’d actually managed not to burn, grabbing quilts and blankets and piling them up on the sofa, and breaking into Louis’ secret stash of chocolate (that was actually not very secret—Louis had ‘hidden it in plain sight’, and Harry knew how to pick those locks you found on five-year-old girls’ diaries—Louis admitted that he had stolen it from his younger sister). Louis had Disney Princess blankets, and purple ones with cats on them, and Harry curled up under them happily, smiling sleepily (the dinner had gone on for far too long).

“I have a wide array of my favourite Disney movies, courtesy of Lottie’s pocket money when she was ten. She grew out of Disney movies a few years ago so I…took them off her hands,” Louis explained.

“You’re never too old for Disney!” Harry protested.

“That’s what I told her! Teenagers, they never know what they’re missing,” Louis said.

“Hmm, I’m starting to think that maybe Bambi is like a third date activity,” Harry admitted, smirking.

“Oh, come on, I’m like three dates all by myself,” Louis teased, making Harry blush.

“Nope. I’m thinking…Sleeping Beauty?”

“Uh, no way. Cinderella?”

“I’m the guest, don’t I get to choose?” Harry demanded.

“You’re my  _date,_ I get to choose,” Louis said.

“Not Cinderella, though.”

“…The Little Mermaid?”

“Nah.”

“Come  _on,_ ” Louis whined. “I’ll be Eric and you can be my Ariel, and we can dye your hair pink.”

“Ariel’s hair is red,” Harry pointed out.

“Who said dying your hair pink had anything to do with Ariel?”

“Either way, it’s not happening.”

“But we can watch the film?”

“Well, there’s an ironic song somewhere in the middle, but okay.”

“Which song’s that?” Louis inquired.

***

_“Sha lalalalala don’t be scared…kiss the girl…”_

“I see what you mean about ironic songs,” Louis murmured against Harry’s lips. They’d moved into a more horizontal position during the film, and they were lazily making out without any obvious intent, feeding each other popcorn and smearing chocolate on the quilts. The blankets now formed a kind of fort around the sofa, and Harry had caramel on the corner of his mouth so Louis licked it off.

Things didn’t normally move this fast for him. He’d had a lot of dates that just ended in a one-night stand and never calling each other again because let’s face it they had nothing in common with him, but this was different. This was affection and care and childishness, and it was like having a best friend, but being able to snog the living daylights out of them, too. It was pretty good.

“I like the movie,” Harry said.

“I like your hair.”

“Tenuous link there, Lou.”

“Meh.”

“Can I stay over?”

“What happened to moving too fast?” Louis teased.

“I never said that!”

“No, I suppose you didn’t. But still.”

“Oh, God. I’ll be on the couch, you idiot. You realise it’s nearly midnight, right?”

“Okay, we’ll finish the movie, and then I’ll tuck you in,” Louis smiled, teasing but not quite. He kind of wanted to take care of Harry, to wrap him up and never let him go. It was nice thought, even if it was kind of creepy in reality.

“Mm,” Harry smiled in response, curling around Louis and shutting his eyes. “Do you think I’ll get a second date?”

“What other movie weaknesses do you have?” Louis replied.

“I like superheroes,” Harry said.

“Proper little fanboy, aren’t you?” Louis teased lightly, letting his head fall into Harry’s neck. “DC or Marvel?”

“DC,” Harry responded.

“But Spider-Man,” Louis whined.

“But Batman!”

“Iron Man!”

“Superman.”

“Oh, come on. Whose weakness is Kryptonite? The Avengers.”

“Justice League.”

“No one cares about the Justice League.”

“I do!” Harry said.

“We have X-Men. Your move.”

“Um…Catwoman.”

“Black Cat.”

“Black Cat  _so_ doesn’t count.”

“Does too! The Fantastic Four.”

“The Joker.”

“Loki.”

“Bane.”

“Bane is the worst villain ever. Anyway, I can’t hear you over all of our box office money,” Louis replied confidently, and Harry rolled off him.

“You have no taste in superheroes.”

“You lie. Anyway, DC was responsible for the Legion of the Superpets. There’s no coming back from that, love.”

“They were cute!”

“You’re cute. We’re watching Spider-Man.”

“Tobey Maguire or Andrew Garfield?” Harry asked.

“Andrew Garfield, duh!”

“What? Are you on drugs or something?”

“Tobey cried all the time. Plus, Andrew is hot.”

“You’re shallow.”

“I’m wounded. One more remark and I might leave you out on the streets tonight. And then there’ll be no second date.”

“Okay, okay, I’ll sit through the stuttering,” Harry said.

“He doesn’t stutter!” Louis protested.

“It’s like you haven’t even watched the movie.”

“Oh, shut up.”

***

They did all that and more. They saw every movie in Louis’ collection, but none of the ones in Harry’s because Louis insisted that they were all awful. They went to Gulliver’s Land (a theme park for five-year-olds) and snogged in front of all the kids, leading to getting kicked out and banned for life. They sat on the concrete cows, they went to the cinema, and they realised that Milton Keynes had very few actual attractions, so mostly they just hung around at each other’s apartments, until one day, a year after they met (exactly):

“Do you want to move in with me?”

Harry looked shocked; his forkful of food froze on its way to his mouth. They were in the restaurant where they’d first met, and Louis bit his lip anxiously while he awaited Harry’s reply.

“Really?” Harry asked hoarsely.

“Well, yeah. I mean, I love you, and I want to spend more time with you, and since I’m quitting soon…” Louis explained.

“You’re quitting?”

“Shit, I forgot to tell you. Um, there’s an opening at a primary school in Monkston, and I want to go for it. I’ve never been as passionate as you about teaching history.”

“You’ll be making a lot less money. Is that why you want me to move in with you?”

“What? No! I have a heap of money saved to spend on rent when I’m making less. You don’t have to pay rent if you don’t want! I just…I like waking up next to you in the morning. I want to do it more often,” Louis admitted.

“Of course I’ll move in with you, Lou,” Harry replied, his grin so wide that Louis could see his dimples and the crinkles in his eyes.

“Thank God,” Louis sighed in relief. “Otherwise we couldn’t have gone back to my apartment tonight.”

When they did, Harry almost cried in happiness. It was cheesy, and totally cliché, and very Louis. Rose petals, candles, and a huge hand-made sign reading:  _Welcome home, Hazza._


End file.
